SOLVED. Children's Fantasy chapter book series for 8-12 year olds that involve four main characters with their associated animal and magic powers. Read around 2019.

[hkbbgs]

It’s part of a series, and I dont mind which book of the series you find or if you just let me know what the series name is called, either is fine.
i read it when i was around 10 years old (2019)
it’s a chapter book
it has four main characters, all kids, and they each had an associated pet that they could connect to
i remember specifically that one girl had a panda and one boy had a bird
i think there mightve been a really slow burn romance between the two
the covers had the characters on them
i remember one cover had just the boy with the bird on it, but i might be wrong
i know for sure one of the covers of one of the books in the series had all of the four main characters together in front of a tree, and this is the book where the panda girl and the bird boy kissed, and it’s also either the last book or almost the last book

[Kimberlyn]

Is this maybe the Spirit Animals series? Each book was written by a different author, but the first one "Wild Born" is by Brandon Mull. It has a girl character named Meilin who has a panda companion and a boy named Rollan who has a Falcon as companion. I have incongruently only read the second book, but it looks like you are maybe describing the cover of book 7, "The Evertree". In the second book there definitely was some romantic tension between these two characters, so I am not surprised if they would end up kissing.

[hkbbgs]

Kimberlyn wrote: "Is this maybe the Spirit Animals series? Each book was written by a different author, but the first one "Wild Born" is by Brandon Mull. It has a girl character named Meilin who has a panda companio..."

Yes! It’s the Spirit Animal series

[Rainbowheart]

Wild Born for the link to the first in the series.